Dear Randy: How Can I Avoid Updating My Tree in 5 Different Places?

As I have been caught in almost the same place, multiple Online Trees and have recently blogged about MyHeritage, I thought about how I am going to handle this situation.

I totally agree with Randy, ONE Database. In my case FTM2014. I uploaded a GEDCOM from my master file. It's now on MyHeritage, Geni.com (now My Heritage, but a different and much older tree), Mocovo, and probably others.

Since FTM2014 works so well with my Ancestry Member Tree (ATM) that they have the same information and I do most of my research from within FTM2014 and update my AMT. So, why would I use the others. One simple answer, different sources of Records and the fact that they also have other On Line Trees. My Heritiage's technology in SmartMatches and Record Matches adds to where I can search AND I get emails on a very regular bases of new matches.

But I also have other places to do my research. FamilySearch.org, Fold3.com, Newspapers.com; GenealogyBank.com, and others, just to name a few.

Back to the question about Updating. I don't, mostly for the reasons that Randy Mentioned. But at the same time, I am very much in favor of Collaboration.

Being simple minded, I try to handle each of these websites the same way. Look at the Hint from Ancestry.com; look at the RecordMatches from MyHeritage; search on the other websites for records, depending on what I am looking for and what my Genealogy Question is.

Any records, I bring into FTM2014, citing the courses, evaluating what I have and move on.

But what about the other online trees. As I have posted before, they are another source of information, not records, I enter the information in that other online tree into FTM2014 and Cite the source as being that online tree. I am looking for clues or hints to records I might not have thought about. If I pick that piece of information from that online tree, I'll go find that record myself.

I try to leave comments on those trees either confirming that we have a connection or sharing a record that the tree owner might want to look at, then move on.

For the moment, using our existing technology, I am not going to update one of these online trees with my file. I want those online trees for collaboration.

Where to get Help

A Blog is not a very helpful place to troubleshoot a problem with Family Tree Maker. There is plenty of help, in the Help Menu of the program that is specific to where you are in the program; In the Help Menu, there is a link to the Knowledge Base website, called Online Help Center.